CYBERCRIME IN INDIA

 INTRODUCTION

The internet, like every other technology in history, had its benefits and drawbacks. The founding fathers had no idea that their product would one day be utilised to injure and destroy someone. Various harmful things are occurring in cyberspace today.

"Every activity and reaction that takes place in cyberspace has legal and cyber legal implications." The term "cyberlaw" refers to legal matters that arise in cyberspace. It is a synthesis of many laws designed to address and overcome the concerns and challenges that humanity faces on the internet every day.Because cybercrime is still an emerging topic, there is currently no comprehensive law in place to address it anywhere in the world. However, the Government of India has the Information Technology Act, 2000 in place to govern dangerous online actions that infringe an internet user's rights.

The pandemic in 2020 pushed most of the world to take up the culture of work from home. This meant that most of the people would be operating online through their gadgets and thus increasing the overall internet engagement to an all time high. During the same time, our country also witnessed an overall increase of around 16% in the number of cybercrimes, with a total of 4.5 million cyberattacks being reported in July 2020. These included cases of cyberbullying, identity theft, bankings frauds etc. This was quite predictable with the increasing internet penetration and ease of access to internet networks.

CYBERCRIME IN INDIA

Of the various cybercrimes reported, Data breaching and Financial theft have been increasing at exponential rates. This  alarming trend, where the imposters are easily breaking into the system of users raises the issue of tougher cybersecurity and strict cyberlaw implementation.

Cybercrime mainly  falls into  two categories: 

1. When a computer is used as a weapon. Cyber terrorism, credit card fraud,    pornography   

     and  IPR violations, are examples of such crimes.

2.The location of the computer as the target. Such crimes include using one computer to harm 

    another, such as virus distribution, hacking.

Cybercrimes are associated with the loss of huge sums of money for individuals, various private industries and governments as well. As reported by ‘The Economic Times’ in 2019, even before the pandemic the Indian Government was suffering a loss of over Rs. 1.25 lakh crores each year because of the cyber attacks. Almost all the governments across the world have set up their own set of rules and laws when it comes to cybersecurity and this goes for our nation as well. But the real catch lies in the way a government tries to catch up with the regular advancements taking place in the domain of technology and accordingly sets the privacy regulations for the stakeholders.Cyber extortion entails an assault or threat of an attack in order to obtain extortion money. A ransomware attack is one example. Cybercriminals get into an organization's network and lock down any potentially sensitive data or documents until a ransom is paid. Identity theft is an attack in which a person gains access to a computer in order to obtain the user's personal information, such as banking information, credit card numbers, identity card numbers, personal health information, and so on. On the dark web, such information is bought and sold for profit, and it is frequently used to perpetrate fraud and make illicit transactions.

The Indian government has structured all its cyber security around the four major laws.These have been laid down keeping in mind the need of penetrating the internet to our rural areas and still managing to keep down the success rate of cyberattacks.

First of  all  from the important  four  laws, the Information Technology Act,  2000 , which takes into account all the punishments and penalties related to internet based finance. These include internet banking and e-governance sectors. One of the major hit industries because of cybercrimes is the e-commerce industry. And the IT Act of 2000, has been successful to quite some extent in dealing with the frauds associated with the E-commerce industry. One of the most famous instances of referring to this Act was back in 2012 when a campaigner ‘Aseem Trivedi’ was arrested for violating the National Honor Act under section 66(A) of IT Act , 2000.

Second Cybersecurity associated law is the Indian Penal Code,1860. Cybercrimes such as building bogus websites and cyber frauds are punishable by a seven-year prison sentence and/or a fine under this provision of the IPC. This part of the IPC addresses offenses involving the theft of passwords in order to perpetrate fraud or create bogus websites. 

Third on the list is the Companies Act of 2013, where all the technology and legal compliances required from the companies are mentioned properly. And which have be followed diligently by the companies, otherwise for any cybersecurity obligation the directors and the leaders of the company are held responsible.

And the last of these is controlled by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) which is focused towards setting the best practices and standards for managing risks associated with cybersecurity in a responsible manner. Their Cyber Security Framework is totally inspired by giving ‘flexibility’ and handling the cybersecurity in a cost-effective manner.

The fundamentals rules laid down by NIST along with ISO/IEC 27001 (a information security management system (ISMS)) have proved to be very fruitful for all the industry related work, especially in the supply chain domain.

CONCLUSION

Technology is progressing, and with it comes the emergence of ugly elements at the darkish web. Intelligent humans are misusing their capabilities and exploiting the net for nefarious purposes, in addition to for economic gain. As a result, cyber regulation is an pressing requirement. Because our on-line world is the sort of difficult panorama to navigate, positive acts slip into the gray zone, in which no legal guidelines alter them. As a result, India nonetheless has a protracted manner to move earlier than it has a complete cybercrime regulation. Seeing that there exist already desirable foundations for cybersecurity, the actual hassle lies in preserving up with the brand new technological tendencies via way of means of making amendments to those legal guidelines. India is barely sluggish in bringing approximately those in assessment to different nations that have been a hit in enacting legislation closer to categorized cyber security. However in India we've positive essential provisions associated with cyber laws. A man or woman who commits information robbery, transmits a virulent disease right into a machine, hacks, destroys information, or denies get right of entry to to the community to an accredited man or woman is punishable below sections forty three and sixty six of the IT Act with a most sentence of 3 years in jail or a first-class of rupees 5 lakhs, or both. Data robbery is likewise punishable below Sections 378 and 424 of the IPC, with most consequences of three years in jail, a first-class, or both; and a pair of years in jail, a first-class, or both. below Section 426 of the IPC, denying get right of entry to to an accredited man or woman or inflicting harm to a pc machine is punishable via way of means of up to a few months in jail, a first-class, or both.

 Prof. (Dr.) Ajay Kumar Tyagi

                  JEMTEC School of Law